If you see this little gem from Thalion anywhere, get it and give it a shot. I'd personally rank this much underated game as second only to Wiz7. (I was never really able to play Bane. The interface is just too cumbersome for me.) Amberstar was released in 1992 (I think)and is a RPG rather remiscent of Ultima. The graphics and sound are advanced for the time and it still runs on my Pentium 166 without any problems in a DOS window.
What makes this game so good? Well the combat isn't as advanced as Wiz7 and the party management isn't as flexible... But, at times I felt like I was there, in the world solving the quests something few games achieve.
You start off in Twinlake, by your parents grave. While exploring the graveyard an appropiate tune plays (one of about twenty!) and the view is remiscent of Ultima 6. Visit the graveyard at the right times and you can talk to the ghosts! Or the grieving widow. To start with you have a party of one, and you don't have a class untill a guild accepts you. This makes combat ridiculously hard at first, since classless characters can't use anything worth having. Fortunately it is possible to leave the city and explore without encountering fights(almost no random encounters) until you have some people in your party. This game is rather big the main map is 400 by 400 and you can easily get lost early game. Late game travel is not a problem which is good as the game is as non linear as Wiz7.
What else? Automapping, lots of notetaking recommended, riddles, puzzles, challenge, good interface, dialogue, travel on eagleback and a good selection of equipment.
I've played the PC and Amiga versions, and I know of no way to obtain it these days other than 'abandonware'. Whatever your opinion this is usually illegal. In this case I think its a moot point as the company which owns the copyright went bust some time ago. To my knowledge no one bought the rights off the recievers.

• A legal point...,DrSlop, 02:34 PM, Mar-13-00
  • I nearly found it,Llevram, 05:18 PM, Mar-13-00
    • It's there,Simon -ur, 01:12 PM, Mar-14-00
  • RE: A legal point...,Magneto, 04:26 PM, Mar-15-00
    • RE: A legal point...,DrSlop, 06:44 AM, Mar-16-00
  • Anyone else played this yet?,Stu, 03:03 AM, Mar-20-00
    • Almost ...,Llevram, 08:27 AM, Mar-20-00

Sounds interesting -- I've never even heard of it before... I'll keep it in mind and search around sometime.

Just as a little side point, I believe that theoretically abandonware is supposed to be completely legal, since its supposed to be just games that the copyright owners have let the copyright expire or have released from ownership and put into the public domain... as to what people actually put up on abandonware sites or call abandonware, that probably a whole different issue.

OE

The only reference I could find was on an abondonware site, but there was no link to download the game (as there was with the other games).
This usually means it was put on the site as abandonware, then found not to be.
This sounds like an interesting game, so I'll keep looking ...

Tools for your Wizardry(r) toolkit

Of course, I wouldn't take responsability for what you do with this link

http://underdogs.gamingdepot.com/RPG.htm

Simon

... as to what people actually put up on abandonware sites or call abandonware, that probably a whole different issue.

I did come across a site that had Wiz 7 as abandonware!?! Since InterPlay is selling all the Wizardry games in the UWA, none of them could legally be abandonware.

Dorothy to Scarecrow: But what would you do with a brain if you had one?

I believe that at one point W6 was abandonware I'm actually not sure where I got that from, so it could be totally false, but I seem to have a vague recollection of it. Wasn't it included in a free disc or something some time back?

OE

How about some opinions if you have seen it. Does it rock, blow, so-so?

I tried it last night, but found it seemed to want to run in DOS mode, and I had "windowy" stuff to do. I plan on tryingit this week.

Tools for your Wizardry(r) toolkit